Chapter 6: What Gerald Saw
Gerald found me at the stern of the ship that afternoon.
I was alone.
Mason was in the kids' club.
Emma was napping in the cabin with Patricia, who had simply appeared at the door two hours earlier, held out her arms, and said, "Go.
Take some time." I hadn't argued.
I was standing at the railing watching the wake spread out behind us — that long white line the ship drew across the water, straight and then dissolving, gone within minutes.
Gerald stood beside me.
He didn't say anything for a while.
"She came to the house," he said finally.
I turned to look at him.
"Diane.
About four months ago." He kept his eyes on the water.
"Ryan told us she was a colleague.
Stopping by to drop off some paperwork.
Patricia was out.
I was in the garden." A pause.
"She stayed for two hours."
"Did you tell Patricia?"
"I told Ryan." His voice was even.
"I told him I didn't know what was happening and I didn't want to know.
I told him whatever it was, it needed to stop.
I told him he had a new baby and a wife who was carrying everything alone and that I was ashamed of him."
The wake kept spreading.
Kept dissolving.
"He said it was already over," Gerald said.
"He looked me in the eye and said it was done."
"And you believed him."
"I wanted to." He turned to look at me then.
His face was tired in a way that had nothing to do with age.
"I should have told you.
I've been asking myself all night whether I should have told you, and the honest answer is yes.
I should have.
I'm sorry, Claire."
I looked at this man who had been my father-in-law for nine years.
Who had taught Mason to fish.
Who had driven three hours to the hospital the night Emma was born and sat in the waiting room until two in the morning just to hold her for five minutes.
"You didn't know for certain," I said.
"I knew enough."
We stood there for a moment.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"I don't know yet."
"Whatever you decide—" He stopped.
Started again.
"Those children are my grandchildren.
That doesn't change.
You are — you have been — the best thing that happened to this family.
That doesn't change either."
I pressed my lips together hard.
"Gerald—"
"Don't thank me.
I'm telling you the truth, that's all."
A gust of wind came off the water.
I pulled my cardigan tighter.
"He was supposed to be better than this," Gerald said quietly.
It didn't sound like it was meant for me.
It sounded like something he'd been carrying for a long time.
I left him at the railing.
Ryan was in the cabin when I got back.
Patricia had gone.
Emma was awake in her travel cot, batting at a small hanging toy.
Ryan was sitting on the edge of the bed watching her.
He looked up when I came in.
"I ended it," he said.
"This morning.
I went to her cabin and I ended it."
I stood in the doorway.
"She's going to disembark at Nassau," he said.
"The ship stops tomorrow morning.
She'll leave then."
"Did she agree to that?"
"She didn't have a choice."
"People always have a choice, Ryan."
He looked back at Emma.
"I know."
Emma made a sound — a small, pleased sound, the kind she made when the toy moved just right.
Ryan's face did something complicated.
"I know it doesn't fix anything," he said.
"I'm not saying it fixes anything."
"No," I said.
"It doesn't."
I crossed to the travel cot and picked Emma up.
She grabbed a fistful of my hair immediately, the way she always did.
"Claire." Ryan's voice was low.
"I need you to know that what I said in the hospital was real.
All of it."
I looked at him over Emma's head.
"I believe you," I said.
"I think you meant every word.
And I think the next morning you went right back to meaning every word you'd said to her too.
And I think that's actually worse."
He had nothing to say to that.
I took Emma out to the balcony and closed the door behind me.
The ocean was very blue in the afternoon light.
Nassau was somewhere ahead of us, still invisible, just a point on a map where one part of this story would end and another would begin.
I looked down at Emma.
She had released my hair and was now studying my face with the absolute focused seriousness that babies have, like she was memorizing something important.
"Hi," I said quietly.
She grabbed my finger.
I didn't cry.
Not then.
May you like
I just stood there with my daughter and let the wind come off the water and thought about the folded piece of paper in my cardigan pocket with Patricia's sister's phone number on it.
I hadn't thrown it away.
